Profound Knowledge from a Knowledge Use Perspective
ASA Deming Lecture: “Profound Knowledge from a Knowledge Use Perspective,” Vincent P. Barabba, Market Insight Corporation
Theory of Knowledge
What Loss Will a Business Suffer Due to a Dissatisfied Customer?
Guest post by John Hunter, who founded curiouscat.com in 1996. You can’t know how much a dissatisfied customer will cost your business in the long run. You can make statistical judgements about how costly dissatisfied customers are to a business but those are loaded with many guesses. They can give a general indication of the …
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Ron Moen’s Presentation: Prediction is the Problem
Guest post by John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog. The video shows the presentation by Ron Moen, Prediction is the Problem, at our 2012 annual conference. A previous post on our blog in 2013 included a clip from this talk and explored Ron’s thoughts which might be of interest if you …
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Do You See What I See – Bill Bellows
Guest post by John Hunter. This webcast shows Bill Bellows’ presentation, Do You See What I See, at the 2012 Annual Deming Conference. Bill is now the Deputy Director of The W. Edwards Deming Institute®. I previously posted on a snippet from this presentation: How Did We Do on the Test?. As long as we …
Wouldn’t It Be Nice?
Post by Bill Bellows, Deputy Director, The Deming Institute. Long before Adele and Lady Gaga spoke their first words, The Beatles and The Beach Boys were music industry leaders in the US and UK, as well as worldwide airwave competitors. While neither group may have heard of Alfred Politz, a pioneer in the field of market research, …
Anyone Can Cut Costs, Look Good and Go Out of Business
Guest post by Edward Martin Baker. A version of this post originally appeared on Aileron.org. Years ago, a “friend” who thought he was a mechanic, as did I, offered to improve my car’s performance. He removed parts of the engine, fiddled around with them, and reassembled them. When he finished, I saw some of the …
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Jobs to be Done
“While many in the business world associate the word ‘theory’ with something purely academic or abstract, nothing could be further from the truth. Theories that explain causality are among the most important and practical tools business leaders can have.” – Clayton Christensen
Countering Confirmation Bias
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge. – Daniel J. Boorstin After you decide that Deming’s ideas seem valuable you must act to adopt new methods in order to benefit from what you have learned. This takes many forms and I have discussed many possible steps in that …
The Influence of C. I. Lewis on Walter Shewhart and W. Edwards Deming
W. Edwards Deming had a large and varied collection of influences. One of the most difficult for people to grasp is C.I. Lewis. The ideas Dr. Deming drew from the work of C.I. Lewis provide one of the ways his ideas on management are different from others. But trying to read the original work of …
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Understanding Data is Often Challenging
Using data to understand the system and validate our theories and successful improvements is an important part managing well. In some cases it is fairly easy to understand and collect data that provides a clear and accurate measure of what we care about. But getting data that helps can also be very challenging. Creating a …